New York - The Coney Island amusement park in New York has been considered America's playground for decades, luring artists with its roller-coasters, carousels, hot dogs - and of course the beach.
The Brooklyn Museum is paying homage to the amusement mecca with an exhibition called “Coney Island: Visions of an American Dreamland, 1861-2008.”
The show, which will run until March 13, 2016, features photos, films, parts of rides, drawings and sculptures illustrating the rise and fall of the park.
“The modern American mass culture industry was born at Coney Island, and the constant novelty of the resort made it a seductively liberating subject for artists,” curator Robin Jaffee Frank said.
Coney Island used to draw more than a million visitors before it became run down and deteriorated in the 1970s.
The amusement park has since been renovated and is now a major attraction especially in summer for New Yorkers and tourists.
Brooklyn Museum, which opened in 1887, is the second-largest exhibition house in New York. It also includes scientific and ethnologic collections as well as artworks from the 19th and 20th centuries.
DPA